Transcript: Writing resume bullets
How do you know if you are writing strong bullets on your resume?
One trap many college students fall into is writing bullets that explain their job duties. Let’s look at an example of a job duty bullet for an apartment manager.
“Rented apartments to college students in 40-unit building.”
“Collected rent each month.”
“Maintained property.”
Notice they don’t tell the reader anything about the accomplishments or value the apartment manager brought to the company. Your bullets should show off your accomplishments. Here are some tips to help you.
Start with strong action verbs to show your accomplishments. You can search for resume action verbs to find more examples. Depending on the skill you want to highlight there are several actions verbs you can use.
Next, ask yourself what did you do, how did you do it, and what was the result. Or you can try the CAR model which stands for Challenge, Action, and Result. Here’s an example.
“Maintained accurate inventory reports using Shop Control CRM, improving efficiency 9%”
The phrase “Maintained accurate inventory reports” answers what you did or the Challenge. “Using Shop Control CRM” answers how you did it or the action, and “improving efficiency 9%” answers the result.
After you’ve identified and labeled all three elements in your bullet then rearrange it to start with the result. This is called front loading your bullets and it allows the reader to see your accomplishments first.
“Increased efficiency 9% by maintaining accurate inventory reports using Shop Control CRM.”
Quantifying your accomplishments using numbers and percentages also makes your bullets stronger. But don’t make up numbers if you don’t know them. Here’s an example of a quantified bullet.
“Increased 40-unit apartment building occupancy rate from 85% to 100% in 4 months by expanding marketing to 3 social media platforms.”
You can also showcase your experience by stating the goal of a project and how you accomplished it. Here are some examples.
“Ensured customer satisfaction through ability to assess and meet customer needs when issues arose.”
“Improved and enforced training standards by obtaining food handler’s permit.”
Finally resumes have a unique writing standard that you should follow.
The standard leaves out personal pronouns like I, you, we, and they, and articles like “the” “a” and “an”. Also, bullets should be written in past tense except your current position. You can choose to write it in past or present tense. However, don’t mix tenses, choose which tense works best for your current position.
Example: I am developing a marketing campaign.
Developed marketing campaigns.
One last thing, make sure there are no spelling errors!
Applying all these tips will help you write stronger bullets that get noticed by recruiters and improve your chances of landing that job!
Good luck writing your resume!